


come what may (where we've been)

by statusquo_ergo



Series: a fire in the sage's mansion [1]
Category: Suits (US TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Cuckolding, M/M, Mentions of Cancer, Parenthood, Post-Season/Series 07
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-13
Updated: 2018-03-13
Packaged: 2019-03-30 20:32:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13959456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/statusquo_ergo/pseuds/statusquo_ergo
Summary: A lot of things need to happen very quickly when Marcus's cancer suddenly begins progressing again, and Harvey might not be in any position to start telling him and Katie how to run their lives, but there's one thing of which he is absolutely certain:Lily isn't getting custody of those kids.





	come what may (where we've been)

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: I wish you would write a fic where Harvey has to be the guardian of his brother’s kids and this new dad-Harvey style makes Mike kinda realize/accept his love for him. Maybe Mike already left but keeps getting texts with adorable pictures from Harvey
> 
> I must confess, kid!fic is not really my thing, but [FrivolousSuits](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrivolousSuits/pseuds/FrivolousSuits) generously helped come up with a very “me” take on the subject, so even though this fic went a little off the rails…please enjoy!

Metastasized.

Harvey presses his fingertips together and raises his hands in front of his face.

The cancer has metastasized.

Again.

He should be happy that Marcus called him. He should be grateful.

It’s nice his brother bothered to tell him that he’s dying.

Harvey sighs. There have been tons of advancements in the field of cancer research since the last time Marcus had a relapse; there are medications, and treatments, and…chemo, there’s always chemo. They can fight this, Marcus can fight this.

They’ll fight it together.

Damn right they will.

Harvey bites the side of his tongue. He can’t rely on Marcus to be his emotional support; the guy’s battling malignant cancer, for god’s sake, and Katie is probably burning herself out taking care of him and their kids. Their kids, fuck, who’s taking care of their kids? They must have a plan for this, who took care of their kids the last time Marcus had a relapse?

_Mom made dinner every night. Bobby took my kids to school every day._

Fuck.

His stomach spasms, acid reflux burning the back of his throat as he clasps his hand over his mouth and his nose, squeezing his eyes shut. No, no; she apologized, they made up, everything is fine.

Everything is _fine._

The aftertaste of bile grates in the back of his throat.

Snatching up his handset, Harvey dials the first two digits of Donna’s extension, his finger hovering over the third, poised to continue, but…no. He can’t draw her into his family drama, asking her to come to the rescue again; she’ll do what she always does, schedule his every move down to the minute in some ill-advised effort to make his life easier, some well-meaning total invasion of all the parts he wants to keep private.

But whatever this is, he can’t do it alone.

Hanging up the landline, Harvey drops his chin into his hand and scowls. He can’t appeal to Donna, nor Louis—not that he would be tempted to—nor Marcus, obviously; Jessica might pick up the phone, but she’s in Chicago and probably too busy to coddle him over this, and anyway, he can’t keep running to her every time he gets in a little bit over his head.

He picks up his cell and calls the first number in his speed dial.

“I told you I was here.”

Harvey bites down on a laugh.

“How’d you do that?”

Mike chuckles.

“What’s going on, Harvey?”

He takes a breath; might as well get it over with.

“My brother’s had a relapse.”

He hears Mike’s soft inhale down the line and smiles to himself. Yeah; this was a good idea. This was the right move.

“Harvey,” Mike says firmly, “what do you need? What do you want me to do?”

Oh, Mike.

“I don’t know,” Harvey mutters. “Nothing, I just… I just wanted to tell somebody.”

“Harvey,” Mike presses, “come on, I’m not gonna leave you _alone_ with this. What do you need, what can I do?”

“From California?” he ventures. “Seriously, Mike, this is exactly what I needed; I was looking for someone to tell, and you listened. Thank you.”

“Oh, bullshit,” Mike retorts. “Harvey, come on, don’t try to pull that on me; this isn’t some class action going sideways, this is your brother in the hospital! Again! Now do you want me to fly down to Boston to meet you when you get there, because I swear to god I’ll do it, I’ll leave right now.”

Good old Mike.

Harvey hunches his shoulders up and rubs his forehead; he’s missed this.

Needed this.

“I don’t want you to fly down to Boston.”

“Okay, so should I meet you at your apartment or do you want me to swing by the office?”

Oh, Mike…

Harvey shakes his head, even though Mike isn’t there to see.

“Mike, if you think I’m gonna take the fall for derailing your mission to save the world, you’ve got another thing coming.”

“Harvey.”

Come on now. This is serious.

Harvey takes a shallow breath.

“I think Lily’s gonna take their kids while Marcus is in the hospital.”

Mike pauses. “Okay,” he says slowly, “so that’s…good…”

“No,” Harvey interrupts, “it’s not.”

Because…

There are reasons. They exist.

He just wishes he knew what they were.

Mike will figure them out. He’s sitting at his desk with his phone pressed to his ear, Harvey sees it clearly in his mind’s eyes; his free hand is massaging his mouth, a gesture he picked up from Harvey (thank you very much) as his eyes go out of focus and his mind races to catch up to Harvey’s reasoning before he leaps ahead to the solution to the problem.

Mike hums querulously.

“Didn’t you two make up the last time you saw her?”

Harvey huffs. “I— I guess we did, but Mike, I can’t…”

Mike smiles. Harvey doesn’t know how he knows it, but he does, and everything feels a little bit better.

“Hey,” he soothes, “don’t worry about it. I get it.”

Harvey pinches the bridge of his nose. “You want to explain it to me?”

“I don’t get it in _words…_ ”

Don’t worry, Mike. That part’s not important.

Harvey switches the phone from his right hand to his left and narrows his eyes.

“I can’t let her take those kids.”

“Mm,” Mike murmurs. “How much time do you have?”

“I don’t know,” he admits. “A couple days, maybe, they probably want to get this taken care of pretty fast.”

“Yeah… Any idea what you’re gonna do?”

Harvey scoffs. “Appeal to their sense of reason,” he says wryly. “I don’t know, I guess I’ll call Marcus and Katie tomorrow.”

“Okay, well, lemme know if you need anything.”

Biting his lip, Harvey resists the urge to say something flippant and snide.

“Thanks, Mike.”

“You got it, Harvey.”

He hangs up the phone with a nostalgic little grin. He’s glad Mike is doing well. Well enough that he can afford to drop everything to help Harvey at a moment’s notice, in fact.

Don’t be such a selfish fucking prick.

He’s glad Mike is doing well.

\---

The sun sets fast these days.

Harvey lies on his back, staring up at the dark ceiling and waiting for sleep to come, hoping for it to be swift and all-consuming even though the opportunity for that has long since passed.

She understands. She understands what happened, why he was so angry at her for so long; she’s sorry. She said.

_Let me say how sorry I am for all the pain that I have caused you._

Okay. Okay.

Harvey rolls over on his side, tucking his hands underneath his head and staring at the wall.

She did him wrong, but she knows it now. And admitting to having a problem is the first step to solving it. Right, isn’t that a thing that people say? Sure, it’s one of the twelve steps or something.

His stomach clenches, nausea roiling through his gut, and he closes his eyes tight.

The sun sets fast these days.

\---

Riding on Amtrak is never quite as smooth as Harvey expects it to be.

He’s made the trip enough times that he should know better, but there’s just something about the idea of riding a train two hundred and fifteen miles across state lines that makes him think it should feel like flying.

It’s fine, really; even though the car rattles every now and again, the night sky is dark and full of stars. Well, clouds, and smog, but he can see the moon, and a few stars, one of which might actually be Mars, another possibly Venus. Not that it matters.

Harvey takes his cell out of his pocket and calls the first number in his speed dial.

“Harvey? Harvey, are—are you okay, what’s wrong?”

He blinks quickly, clenching and unclenching his fist on his thigh.

“Nothing, why?”

“But it’s like…midnight in New York, isn’t it?”

Harvey pulls his phone away from his ear and glances down at the display. Twelve-oh-three, how about that.

“I couldn’t sleep.”

Mike sighs.

“Don’t scare me like that.”

Harvey smirks, eyeing the passing scenery.

“You gonna get me in trouble for breaking curfew?”

“I’ll tell Donna on you.”

Closing his eyes, Harvey presses his hand down on his forehead, watching little red starbursts dance across a dark backdrop as the pressure builds up in his skull.

“Don’t do that.”

Mike pauses; when he speaks up again, his tone is careful, steady but without disapproval.

“Where does she think you are?”

Mike’s always been able to figure him out too easily.

“If I told her I was going to Boston,” Harvey says, “she would’ve known it was something about my family, and I don’t… I don’t want to get her involved in this one.”

“You don’t want her to know your brother’s sick?” Mike guesses.

“I don’t want to talk to her about my mother getting custody of his kids while he’s in the hospital,” Harvey corrects.

“Because you guys made up last time you went out there, so why would you have a problem with it.”

“Exactly.”

Mike hums contemplatively. Harvey leans over into the vacant seat on his left.

It’ll be another hour or so before the train pulls into Back Bay Station. Maybe he should have packed more than a single change of clothes; no, it’s fine. He won’t be staying long.

“You know what she said to me?” he asks. “A couple years ago, when I went out to see her?”

“‘I love you’?” Mike guesses, the smartass.

Harvey smirks. “No. I mean, yes, at the end, but before that, I was… After the dinner when I was first trying to tell her that I forgave her, when I went to see her at the college.”

He doesn’t continue, even though he isn’t sure how he wants Mike to fill in the gaps. What he expects of him.

Mike hums again. It sounds like he’s smiling.

“Well whatever it was, I’m sure it was…very touching.”

What a little shit.

Harvey’s chest feels weirdly hollow on the left side.

“She said she’s sorry for the pain she’s caused me,” he says. “And it sounded great, you know, I’m sorry, she’s sorry, everybody feels like shit, but when I try to think about it, everything she said was just… I don’t know how to explain it.”

The line crackles a little, and Harvey hears the sound of a closing door. He wonders who Mike is trying to shut out; where he is that he’s free to take a personal call, but only sort of.

What he’s doing that keeps him busy until nine at night, but he can drop the instant Harvey calls for help.

Saving the world, one fucked up loser at a time. ‘Atta boy.

Mike sighs.

“She’s your mother,” he says, “she was supposed to look out for you.”

_I was supposed to protect you, not scar you._

Harvey nods to himself.

“Yeah, that’s pretty much what she said.”

“Is she sorry for what she did?”

What?

Harvey stares at the tray table pinned up to the seatback in front of him. She said she’s sorry, isn’t that enough? Isn't that what she’s supposed to do? Didn’t they go through all the steps?

“Why wouldn’t she be?” he asks hesitantly. Mike has never met Lily; what does he know about what went on between them? What can he know that Harvey doesn’t?

Then again, Paula never got around to meeting her, either, and she seemed pretty keen on explaining how everything was actually Harvey’s fault for the low, low price of a thousand dollars an hour.

“I don’t know,” Mike concedes. “It’s just that from what I’m hearing, it sounds like she’s more sorry she got caught. She’s not sorry she was having an affair, she’s not sorry she was covering it up, just that you got caught in the crossfire.”

His head thumps against the headrest as Harvey slouches in his seat, turning his gaze to the ceiling. Is that it? Is that what’s been fucking him up this whole time, is _that_ what’s kept him from reaching out to his mother again for the past three years? Bridges mended, trust restored, but they haven’t seen each other again, they’ve barely made time for a phone call, and it’s because of _this?_

“How did you do that?” he murmurs. Mike laughs awkwardly.

“It’s possible that I might have used that trick to uh, repent for a few messes I got myself into at Saint Andrew’s.”

Of course he did.

Harvey chuckles.

“I’m just glad you’ve committed to using your devious mind for the greater good.”

“Is that what we’re calling it now?”

“Seriously, Mike,” Harvey carries on, the late hour hitting him all at once as he looks out the window at the trees scrolling by and the train rattles a little on the tracks. “Thanks for…for being in my corner.”

Mike clears his throat, and Harvey smiles. It’s nice to be able to get this all out in the open for once.

“Where else am I gonna be?”

Where else.

Harvey bites his tongue and looks down at the floor.

“Thank you.”

“Hm.”

Harvey recognizes this moment. That awkward time at the end of a conversation when neither of them wants to hang up, but neither can think of a credible way to prolong the conversation. They can talk about anything, the two of them, but now, three thousand miles apart, this isn’t the time for banter. This isn't the time for making light.

“Have a good night, Mike.”

“I’m here if you need me.”

Harvey smiles down at his phone.

That’s my guy.

\---

It’s all over Katie’s haggard face that Harvey is the last person she expected to see on her doorstep this morning; his only thought is that he made a good call in dozing on a bench at the train station rather than coming straight here when he got in at two AM. General aches and pains notwithstanding.

Plus, his disorientation after such a shitty night makes a pretty convenient excuse for the first words out of his mouth when she opens the door:

“You can’t give the kids to Lily.”

For a second, he thinks she’s going to slam it in his face. Then the moment passes and she smiles, blinking her weary eyes as she beckons him inside.

“It’s nice to see you, Harvey,” she says, “but if you could just hold on _one_ second, I have to make sure my children’s bags are packed so they can get to the bus stop as soon as they finish their cereal.” Her step halting, she smiles sardonically at herself and keeps on into the kitchen. “Speaking of which, I should go make sure my children have their cereal.”

“Here,” Harvey cuts in, nipping at her heels, “let me get that, you double check the bags.”

“Wheaties for Christopher and Honey Nut Cheerios for Amanda,” Katie says, taking a hard left and heading back to the front door as Harvey dodges around her into the kitchen. “And make sure Amanda doesn’t pour maple syrup on hers, that crap is all sugar as it is.”

“You got it,” Harvey says, pushing open the kitchen door.

“The first ingredient is oats,” a young girl informs him as the door swings shut, “and I told Mom that I don’t like Honey Nut Cheerios anymore, I want eggs with tofu.”

“I want bacon,” a boy a couple of years her senior chimes in. “And hash browns.”

They both look up expectantly, and Harvey stops so short he has to catch himself on the wall.

Granted, it’s been a few years since he last saw his niece and nephew, but… _still._

“How old are you two?” Harvey asks as he makes his way to the cabinet to grab the only cereal he sees, a half-empty box of plain Cheerios. “Aren’t you supposed to be five?”

“I was five the _last_ time you were here,” Amanda replies authoritatively, “but now I’m _nine,_ and Chris is _eleven._ ”

“ _Christopher,_ ” Christopher insists. Amanda rolls her eyes.

Cereal clatters on the countertop as Harvey becomes too distracted to notice how much he’s pouring into the bowl.

“Aren’t you old enough to do this yourself?” he asks as he fumbles to evenly divide the mess into two portions.

“Yeah,” Christopher says, “but I think that would screw up Mom’s morning schedule, so we just let her do it for us.”

“How considerate,” Harvey mutters, pouring the milk. “When do you have to be at the bus stop?”

“Ten minutes,” Amanda declares.

Harvey deposits the bowls on the table in front of them, and Christopher waits a few seconds before getting up to grab a couple of spoons off the drying rack next to the sink.

“So you’re Uncle Harvey?” he asks as he digs into his breakfast. Harvey nods, leaning back against the counter.

“I am,” he confirms. “So what, uh… What have your parents told you about me?”

Christopher shrugs. “I dunno. Nothing. I remember you and Dad were yelling at each other last time you were here.”

He would remember that. Harvey smiles thinly.

“Your dad and I were having a disagreement.”

Christopher shovels a spoonful of cereal into his mouth. “Sounded like a pretty loud disagreement.”

“Is that why you never come over?” Amanda asks. “Is it because you and Daddy hate each other?”

Pretty audacious kids his brother’s got here.

“Your dad and I don’t hate each other,” Harvey defends. “Our family was having some problems a few years ago, but it’s…been resolved. Everything’s fine now.”

It is. It’s fine. They’re all fine.

He can’t tell whether he’s convinced her or not.

“And I don’t come over very often because I live in New York,” he finishes weakly. “And I work a lot. Long hours.”

“Whatever,” Christopher mutters, dropping his spoon into his bowl and standing with his hands on the table. “We’ve gotta go or we’ll miss the bus.”

Harvey glances pointedly at his dishes.

“Forgetting something?”

Looking down as though he’s never been asked to clean up after himself before, Christopher picks up his bowl and drops it into the sink, keeping his eyes on Harvey the entire time.

“Are you here because spring break starts next week?”

Harvey matches his stare evenly.

“I’ll probably be leaving before then.”

Christopher nods, holding Harvey’s gaze for another few seconds before he walks away. Amanda seems to have left while his back was turned, her bowl and spoon abandoned on the table and her breakfast about three quarters eaten; Harvey dumps the leftovers in the garbage and puts the kids’ dishes in the dishwasher, wondering what, exactly, just happened.

Maybe he should find a hotel.

\---

Polishing off his braised short ribs, signaling for a check, Harvey can’t help questioning—again—his wisdom in coming all the way to Boston for a friendly conversation that will almost definitely end up as some kind of brutal showdown. Christopher and Amanda are Marcus and Katie’s kids, not Harvey’s, and Marcus and Katie have every right to make their own decisions about who gets to take care of them while Marcus is in the hospital. Lily and Bobby are the logical choice, the most obvious choice, and assuming Marcus was telling the truth the last time Harvey came down here, they’ve done it before, so why _wouldn’t_ they step up to do it again? Why _wouldn’t_ the kids want to spend a few days, or a few weeks, hanging out with Grandma and Grandpa, living that spoiled grandkid lifestyle for a little while?

_Honey, you remember our cousin—my cousin Scott?_

Harvey walks out of Forty Dalton with his head down. She wouldn’t do that again, she can’t; she’s with Bobby now, she’s got a family she loves, a family she chose and stood by when times got tough. A family that apparently thinks the world of her, a family that she would never abandon, never turn on. Never betray.

_And let’s not tell Dad about Cousin Scott. Okay? ‘Cause they don’t get along._

How easily the lie rolled off her tongue, though, how quickly she had it ready to go, or came up with it on the fly. How obvious it seemed to her that she should protect her deception with more lies, that she should delude her own son, make him think he was seeing things, hearing things, inventing things out of whole cloth.

Maybe tomorrow, when the whole family sits down to discuss the situation face to face, he’ll be able to parse his confliction out into feelings that can be expressed with actual words.

“Mister Specter!”

Startling, he looks up at the front desk where the receptionist waves to him, gesturing him closer and holding up a piece of notepaper.

“Mister Specter,” she repeats as he steps up to the counter, “a young man just came by looking for you; I’m afraid I had to send him away since you didn’t answer when we called your room, but if you were expecting visitors, he’s only just left, I think you might be able to catch him.”

“I was at dinner,” Harvey says, looking back over his shoulder. “Did he leave his name?”

“Uh,” she checks the paper in her hand, “yes, he said to tell you a Mister Sorkin had stopped by?”

There’s no way.

“Thank you,” he says distractedly, hurrying off down the corridor, struggling to keep from breaking into a sprint as he nears the doors, shoving them open into the night.

No fucking way.

“Hey Rick!”

A man with his back to Harvey stops short, his stiff posture slouching as he hikes up the duffel hanging over his shoulder and shuffles his heel along the concrete.

“I’m sorry,” he drawls, turning slowly, “you must have me mistaken for someone a little less awesome.”

Harvey’s face splits into a wide smile that Mike mirrors immediately as he backtracks to the Hilton’s front doors.

“Mike,” Harvey says, grabbing him into a fierce hug, “what the hell are you doing here?”

Mike shrugs a little as they break apart, his gaze darting away before it locks with Harvey’s.

“I couldn’t sleep.”

Nodding, still grinning, Harvey claps him on the shoulder, herding him back into the hotel and walking them toward the elevators. There’s more to it than that, obviously, but this is a sit-down sort of conversation, not one to be had on a darkened street corner or in the middle of a crowded hall.

“Thank you,” he says, watching the floor indicator tick up as they ride the elevator up to five. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Mike nod.

“Of course.”

Talk about family.

Harvey opens the door to his king suite and beckons Mike inside, sitting on the edge of the bed when Mike takes the armchair in the corner. Both still feeling a little giddy—well, Harvey is, he can only imagine what’s running through Mike’s head—they take a moment to let the silence settle over them, to let the electricity in the atmosphere dissipate so they can collect themselves.

Shaking his head, Harvey hunches over his lap, resting his arms on his knees.

“Did you really fly three thousand miles out here just to see me?”

Mike takes a minute to consider his response, looking away and taking a breath to steady his nerves. When he does finally turn back to Harvey, there’s steel in his eyes, and Harvey prepares to take his words very, very seriously.

“I would’ve crawled the whole way over broken glass.”

Fuck.

Harvey shakes his head and hopes his face isn’t flushing too dark.

“How’d you know where to find me?”

“I checked your recent credit card activity.”

Harvey’s face screws up in a baffled expression, and Mike laughs. “No, I looked your brother up in the white pages and your sister-in-law told me where you were staying.”

“Katie?”

“Yeah.” Mike smirks. “You talk about me to your family?”

Harvey frowns. “I do what?”

“I started to introduce myself,” Mike elaborates, “to tell her why I’m calling, and as soon as I say my name, she goes, ‘Oh, Mike, I guess you’re looking for Harvey.’”

Does he really talk about Mike that much? The last time he came out for a visit, four years ago now, he was too focused on sorting things out with his mother to talk much about anything else, much less work, concentrating too narrowly on fixing everything wrong with his family for his thoughts to wander, to mix his work life with his personal one. He and his brother have talked on the phone since then, of course, whenever something important has happened in someone’s life; Marcus called when Amanda made the honor roll, as did Katie when Christopher started volunteering at the local animal shelter. For Harvey’s part, he called to brag to Marcus when Mike got into the Bar, to whine when he broke up with Paula, and then when Mike decided to move to California…

Alright, maybe he’s brought him up a couple of times.

Sitting up, Harvey grins as though it’s no big deal. “That a problem?”

Mike shifts in his seat. “No problem. It was a surprise, but, you know. I trust you.”

_Come on. You poor thing._

It’s been awhile since anybody told Harvey they trusted him. Longer since they said it without an ulterior motive.

Of course, Mike’s always been his guy.

“Harvey?” Mike stands, taking a step forward. “You okay?”

“Hm?” Harvey looks up. “Fine.”

“Harvey.”

Yeah, Harvey wouldn’t’ve bought it, either.

He shrugs. “I guess I missed you more than I realized.”

Mike bites his lip and lowers his chin to his chest; for a second, Harvey’s afraid he’s made some kind of awful mistake, but then Mike turns to sit beside him on the bed, leaning into his side.

“I missed you too.”

Yeah.

Harvey raises his arm up to drop it across Mike’s back and pull him closer.

“You would’ve crawled three thousand miles over broken glass for me?”

Mike drops his head down on Harvey’s shoulder.

“Five thousand miles.”

God dammit, Mike…

Before he can think better of it, Harvey raises his hand to the side of Mike’s neck and presses a kiss to the top of his head. Mike looks up curiously, and Harvey smiles at the wall.

“Thanks for coming out here.”

Mike rubs his hand up and down Harvey’s back.

“Thanks for calling me.”

After a moment’s pause, Harvey tousles his hand through Mike’s hair and stands, pacing a little ways away from the bed.

“Where are you staying tonight?”

Mike shrugs, bracing his hands on the edge of the mattress.

“I hadn’t thought that far ahead,” he admits, “but I guess I’ll look around for a Holiday Inn or a Motel 6. I’ll be fine,” he brushes off, “won’t be the first time I’ve spent the night in a bus station, it’s only a few hours.”

Harvey levels him with a steady glare.

“Bullshit,” he says flatly. “You see this? There are four pillows on this six-foot wide bed. You’re staying here with me.”

“Harvey—”

“You are staying, with me,” Harvey cuts him off. “You sleep on the right or the left?”

Mike raises his hand to the back of his neck. “Either? Uh; left?”

Harvey nods.

“Perfect.”

\---

The bed may be a proper six-foot wide king, but sometime during the night, Mike seems to have forgotten that they’re allowed to use all six of those feet, choosing instead to huddle against Harvey like a particularly needy puppy.

It’s not the worst feeling in the world.

Rolling onto his back, Harvey rubs his eyes groggily, biting down on a smile before he shoves Mike’s chest, not hard enough to move him but enough to wake him up, or at least begin the process. To be fair, it’s only a little after six, but the good sport that he is, Mike makes a muttering little groan, squeezing his eyes shut before he squirms a ways farther down under the covers and drags them up over his head.

“You got a drink in the house?” he asks, his voice echoing slightly. Harvey smirks.

“Not before breakfast, dear.”

Mike shoves the covers down and arches his eyebrows. “I’ll have you know mimosas are the breakfast of champions.”

“Alright, Vonnegut.” Harvey sets his feet on the floor and arches his back. “I’m going to my brother’s house later today to talk to him and Katie about their kids; Lily and Bobby are coming by, we’re… We’re gonna work this whole thing out before anyone does something they’ll regret.”

He isn’t sure exactly who he’s afraid will be doing what; they’ve all got dogs in this fight, in some shape or another, but Mike doesn’t seem concerned with all that as he lays his hands flat on the mattress and pushes himself up to sit against the headboard, looking at Harvey carefully. Harvey tries not to let it make him uncomfortable, or think about why it’s making him feel that way in the first place.

“You’re doing a good thing, Harvey,” Mike assures him.

Harvey nods.

He is.

“You want to come with me?”

There’s some spontaneity in the request, a touch of impulsiveness, but thinking logically, it's not as though Harvey ever planned on keeping Mike out of the loop; if he hadn’t shown up on Harvey’s doorstep, more or less, he certainly would have received a thoroughly detailed phone call as soon as Harvey left his brother’s house. For his part, Mike looks appropriately bewildered, but if he doesn’t think he’s as much family to Harvey as Marcus and Katie are, then he obviously hasn’t been paying attention.

“Harvey,” Mike protests, “I admire what you’re doing, and you know I want to help you do it, but this is your family, this is—the most personal of personal conversations, I can’t just—show up, I can’t go prying into your life like that.”

“First of all,” Harvey retorts as he pulls off his nightshirt, “you’re not prying, I’m inviting you. And second,” he fishes a fresh button-front out of his bag, sliding his arms into the sleeves, “you went to prison for me, how much more personal do you think you and I are gonna get?”

Mike grins, scratching his temple. “You’re not gonna give in on this no matter what I say, are you?”

“You’re damn right I’m not.”

Pressing his hands to his forehead, Mike chuckles quietly.

“You son of a bitch.”

Harvey smiles.

“Come on,” he says as he pulls on his slacks. “Someone’s gotta make sure you don’t drink your breakfast.”

“How kind of you to shoulder that enormous burden,” Mike drawls, pushing the covers down.

“I’m not gonna risk Rachel coming after me for letting you give yourself alcohol poisoning.”

Suddenly, as though Harvey’s flipped a switch he didn’t even know he had his finger on, Mike turns away, standing and going to his bag without a word, without a witty retort or a snappy comeback. Resisting the impulse to make some crass comment about trouble in paradise, or something equally uninspired, Harvey sits on the edge of the bed and leans down to tie his shoes, hoping Mike will use the silence to collect himself.

When they’ve both finished preparing themselves for the day ahead, Mike clears his throat, his hands shoved deep into his pockets as he looks down at the floor.

“Maybe we can talk about this later?”

Harvey nods, stepping over to him and smoothing his hand down Mike’s shoulder.

“Whatever you want.”

Mike nods, then clears his throat again, his eyes bright when he raises his head.

“So how ‘bout that breakfast?”

Harvey grins and throws his arm across Mike’s shoulders.

Later it is.

\---

The kids’ bus left at seven twenty and Marcus’s chemotherapy appointment ended at twelve; Marcus is bound to be exhausted, but both he and Katie staunchly maintain that the best thing is to get this discussion out of the way as quickly as possible, before the school day ends and the kids’ spring break officially begins. At twelve thirty, Harvey and Mike stroll up to Marcus and Katie’s house about the same time that their car pulls into the driveway and Katie steps out looking exactly as weary as she did when Harvey saw her yesterday, dark smudges under her eyes and a noticeable tension between her shoulder blades broadcasting her stress loud and clear as she helps Marcus out of the passenger side.

“Harvey,” she says as she and Marcus meet them on the stoop, keys already in hand. “And you must be Mike, it’s nice to finally meet you.”

“You too,” Mike says sincerely, “I only wish it could have been under better circumstances.”

Harvey smiles. Katie opens the door and beckons them inside with a nod and a forced grin.

“Thank you for coming, uh; I guess we’ll start talking as soon as Lily and Bobby get here.”

Marcus pats her on the arm, taking a moment to steady himself. “I’m going to get myself a glass of water,” he says, his voice only a little halting. Katie nods and watches him until the kitchen door shuts in his wake.

As Mike scans the foyer, trying to get a sense of the layout of the house, Katie looks bemusedly down at her jeans and what may or may not be a pajama shirt and pats her front pockets.

“I think I’m going to change,” she decides. “Make yourselves comfortable.”

“Take your time,” Mike says politely. As Katie heads upstairs to the bedroom, Harvey nudges Mike toward the living room, sitting down on the sofa and leaving space beside himself for Mike to join him.

“Nice environment for a couple of kids,” Mike notes, nodding toward a massive stockpile of pill bottles on the otherwise pristine dining room table. Craning his neck around, Harvey scowls.

“They found out about his remission on Monday,” he seethes, “why the fuck did they wait until the end of the week to get their kids taken care of?”

Mike shrugs, making a slow circuit of the room. “They’ve got a lot on their plate,” he points out. “Anyway, at least this way they called you before they finished going through with it.”

Harvey glowers. It’s true, but he didn’t have to say it.

Mike sits beside him and pats his leg.

“You got this,” he says. “Just keep your head on straight, everything’ll be fine.”

Before he can formulate a decent response, Katie shuffles into the room, tying her hair up in a tight ponytail as she sits on the couch opposite them.

“Okay!” she chirps, slapping the cushions on either side of her legs. “So, Harvey, you seemed pretty adamant when you first got here and I’m just wondering what the hell your problem is with my mother-in-law taking care of my children.”

Words desert Harvey as he tries to parse Katie’s opener; Mike presses his hands down in his lap, dropping back against the couch cushions, and wisely keeps his mouth shut.

Before either of them can get their feet back under them, Marcus totters out of the kitchen, a half-full water glass clutched feebly in one hand, and suddenly, Harvey understands; he knows why Katie is speaking so bluntly, why she and Marcus haven’t yet shipped their kids out of the house even though they seem so eager to do so, how they could have so quickly decided to pass them off to Lily and Bobby without considering all or even any possible alternatives. Christopher and Amanda don't need to see their father like this, don't need to spend their spring break sitting back and watching his gradual decline, or fleeing the house at every opportunity as they pretend it isn't happening.

“Nice to see you again, Harvey,” Marcus says, setting the glass down on the coffee table between them. “So you’re Mike?”

Mike bites his lip. “Yep.”

“It’s nice to meet you.”

“Likewise.”

“So Harvey,” Marcus continues over Mike’s response, “I thought you and Mom had gotten over your crap the last time you were here.”

They have a lot on their plate.

Harvey can take it.

“Maybe we should wait until your mother gets here,” Mike ventures when Harvey doesn’t leap to defend himself. “So we can get both sides of the story at the same time?”

Practically the moment they begin to mull over Mike’s suggestion, the doorbell rings; Harvey breathes a quiet sigh of relief and Katie rushes off, the sound of Lily’s effusive greeting echoing all the way down the hall as she and Katie exchange hugs or kisses or whatever it is they do to make it clear that Katie is more of a daughter to her than Harvey is a son.

Mike reaches over, squeezing Harvey’s hand for a second before he puts his hands back in his lap and tries to look simultaneously as dignified and unobtrusive as possible.

Entering the room with a wide smile, Lily steps up to the sofa and opens her arms.

“Harvey.”

Harvey grips the sofa cushions and tries not to make it too apparent how much effort he has to put into standing.

“Hey Mom.”

Patting her on the back as she wraps him in a hug, Harvey wonders who among them is genuinely fooled by the display.

When they break apart, Bobby reaches to take his hand, and Harvey shakes it with a grim smile.

“And you must be Harvey’s friend Mike,” Lily croons, bending over and reaching her hand out as though she expects Mike to kiss it. “So nice to finally meet you!”

Mike smiles, nodding slowly.

Harvey grits his teeth.

“So,” he exclaims as he sits beside Mike and Lily withdraws her hand disappointedly. “Now that we’re all caught up, what do you say we get down to business?”

Bobby puts his arm around Lily’s shoulders, guiding her to the couch where Marcus and Katie sit, and the lines couldn’t be more clearly drawn.

It’s good that they know where they stand.

“Well,” Lily begins, placing her hand on Bobby’s knee. “Harvey, Katie tells me you have some concerns about the children coming to stay with Bobby and me while Marcus is in the hospital.”

“In treatment,” Katie corrects.

Harvey looks between them evenly. They think they’re going to snow him with this passive-aggressive bullshit? Who do they think they are, a bunch of lawyers?

Making sure to maintain eye contact, he tries to keep any trace of cockiness, any semblance of arrogance off his face. He needs to disarm them with facts, not fool them with emotionality.

“I don’t think you’re in a position to provide them with a very nurturing home environment.”

Whether or not they agreed ahead of time to pander to him as though he’s a child, they all seem to have come around to the idea by a pretty quick consensus; Bobby and Lily have nearly identical patronizing smiles on their faces, Katie seems somehow embarrassed for him, and Marcus just looks tired.

“Harvey,” Lily says gently. “I’ll have plenty of time to spend with the children; don’t forget that I’m on spring break too, right now, and Bobby isn’t exactly tied down to the shop twenty hours every day.”

Mike’s hackles raise at the unsubtle dig at Harvey’s work schedule, but Harvey’s pretty sure he’s the only one who noticed.

“I’m not talking about that,” he clarifies. “I’m also not talking about money, even though I don’t think an untenured art professor and a semi-retired auto mechanic are in the best position to be fielding the cost of raising two preteens while their father undergoes a major medical procedure.”

Bobby grits his teeth and Katie looks about to make some biting comeback, but there’s not much she can say other than “We’ll pitch in,” which is a blatant lie when they all know that every spare dime she and Marcus have at the moment is going toward his treatment. For her part, Lily seems to have prepared for such an argument, merely continuing to smile as she crosses her legs and lays her hands on top of her thighs.

“Bobby and I are more than ready to take care of Chris and Amanda for the time being.”

“I said I’m not talking about money.”

She raises her eyebrows. “Well then what _are_ you talking about?”

Harvey lowers his. “I’m talking about being able to raise two children into healthy, functioning adults.”

“Well,” Lily says, her eyes darting from Marcus to Harvey, “I think we can all agree I’ve done that.”

Mike winces.

Harvey leans back in his seat.

“You sure?”

Lily and Bobby exchange genuinely perplexed looks before she turns back to Harvey. “You’re not trying to blame me for Marcus’s cancer,” she inquires as though it’s the stupidest idea she’s ever heard. As though that’s the only thing wrong in any of their lives.

“Of course not,” he says slickly, “that’s ridiculous.”

Obviously.

“But I _am_ saying you might have had something to do with the fact that I have some of the worst trust issues of anyone I’ve ever met.”

Lily puts on a flabbergasted expression that makes Mike smirk, but Harvey sees through her ruse. Sees the unabashed horror that he would accuse her of doing anything to hurt her precious children, the thinly-veiled fury that he would point out that her actions have consequences.

“You’re a managing partner at a major corporate law firm,” Marcus rallies, “as you’re so happy to remind us all the time, I think you’ve become a pretty successful functioning adult.”

“You think just because I’m rich, I must be happy?” Harvey snaps, which makes Mike turn nervously toward him, but no, no, that conversation will have to wait for another time.

“So that’s why we should entrust our children to you,” Katie presses, “because you might be miserable but at least you can provide for them?”

“I’m not miserable,” Harvey pushes back. “And who said you should give the kids to me?”

“I haven’t heard any other alternatives.”

“Fine!” Harvey exclaims. “Fine, you want me to, I’ll take custody. Maybe that way they’ll have a shot at actually understanding what they’re feeling so they can deal with all their shit instead of the grown-ups telling them to shut up about it so no one gets upset.”

Time having stopped in its tracks for the moment, Marcus sinks back into the sofa cushions with his face pinched the way a logician’s might be when trying to sort out a paradoxical situation. Katie stares at Harvey as though he’s grown an additional extremity, and Bobby rests his arms protectively around Lily’s shoulders; Lily herself has no particular expression but a vague aura of pity, as though Harvey has just somehow doomed himself to failure, promising to accomplish a task well outside his abilities without even realizing it.

Mike resettles himself on the couch, ending up a bit more in Harvey’s space than he was when he started.

Just as the silence begins to become unbearable, Lily places her hand on the coffee table between them and looks up at Harvey with a tender expression that makes his stomach turn.

“Darling,” she simpers, as though Harvey is a child, “I know your father was away most of the time, but he and I did our best to let you and Marcus express yourselves as much as you wanted. Remember when you wanted to join the baseball team? I wanted you to join the drama club, remember that?”

Harvey frowns. He started playing baseball when he was six, how the fuck is he supposed to remember an argument about the drama club from forty-two years ago?

“But you wanted to play baseball,” she carries on, “and we went along with it because it was something you wanted, you were very clear about that.”

What the fuck does that have to do with anything?

“Uh, sorry,” Mike pipes up, edging forward to place himself into the conversation, “maybe I’m missing something, but that doesn’t sound…particularly _relevant._ ”

“Well I only meant,” Lily explains with an admittedly admirable recovery, “despite what Harvey might think he remembers from his childhood, his father and I actually created a very free environment at home, emotionally; we were open to listening to his desires, and letting him follow his passions.”

Mike glances at Harvey out of the corner of his eye.

You wanna take this one?

Harvey grimaces.

“Mom,” he says, forcing the word out past his teeth. “You remember a few years ago when I came out here, and we talked?”

“Of course I do,” she says. “I remember apologizing to each other, it was one of the best things that’s happened to me in years.”

Marcus looks suspiciously between them, and Harvey clenches his jaw and nods.

“Right.”

“You guys seemed to split on pretty good terms,” Marcus says.

“Lily, you were so excited,” Bobby adds, as though anyone asked.

Mike sets his hand down on the sofa cushion close enough to touch Harvey’s thigh.

“The thing is, Mom,” Harvey goes on, “the thing is, even though you apologized, I don’t think you’re really sorry for what you did.”

“Of course I am,” she retorts instantly, “I told you that, I’m sorry for everything! I thought we understood each other, where is all this coming from?”

He shakes his head. “No, see, you’re sorry I came home that day when I was eleven, you’re sorry I saw you. You’re sorry I walked in on you when I was sixteen, when I was old enough to know what I was seeing and you couldn’t just lie to me about Uncle Scott and make it all go away.”

“Who’s Uncle Scott?” Katie whispers as Marcus rests his hand on her arm.

“We don’t have an Uncle Scott.”

“Oh…”

Yeah, “oh.”

After a moment, Lily takes a deep breath and sits back on the couch, lowering her gaze to some point in between them and uncrossing her legs.

“Harvey.”

She takes another breath, releasing it on a sigh, and folds her hands in her lap.

“I know this is difficult to understand. I know you were hurt by my actions. But from the bottom of my heart, I want you to know,” she looks up imploringly, her eyes even a little wet, “that I loved your father. I loved him very much, and I’m glad I married him, and I’m glad we made a family together because you boys are the most important things to me in the entire world.”

What a funny way you have of showing it.

Harvey shakes his head.

“You don’t do that to somebody you love.”

“Harvey,” she begs, “you don’t understand what it was like; I loved your father so much, and he was away so often; don’t you see, he lived a life completely separate from me, a life that I had no place in, and I needed someone who understood what it meant to really care about somebody else, even just for a little while.”

“Dad cared about you!” Harvey snaps. “He loved you and you know it! And you had us, you had me and Marcus; we were living with the same guy you were, he was away from us just as often as he was away from you, and all you did was _lie_ to us!”

“I know,” she concedes immediately, “I know now that I should have done more to help you boys understand your father, maybe I should have spent more time with you, but you were so young, I couldn’t— I couldn’t burden you with that, with everything I was struggling with, so yes, I lied, but it was all to protect you! And I swear to you I never lied about Bobby, not once!”

Harvey opens his mouth to retort that yes, she did, of course she did, but his tongue feels suddenly dry, heavy and stiff and unable to form the words. He remembers the lie about Scott, he remembers telling Paula about it, and then the other lies, the less obvious ones as she became more careful, more clever, but Bobby… Bobby was after all that, wasn’t he? At that dinner with Marcus and his parents, years later?

Spontaneously, Harvey tries to summon an image of Scott into his mind just to assure himself that he isn’t crazy, that this isn’t all some half-cocked fantasy, some stupid one-off mistake his mother made in a moment of weakness, but he can’t quite bring himself to do it; vague features come to mind, a youthful face and dark hair, but nothing to convince him, nothing to be sure of.

Is it true? Was she just looking for some companionship while her husband roamed the country without her, was she really just trying to protect her boys? They all made mistakes, to be sure, but maybe she was just doing all she knew how to keep them safe, to keep them together as long as she could. Maybe they were really doomed from the start, maybe she was trying to help them all stay a family until it was impossible.

He can’t even be sure what he hopes is the truth.

“I think,” Mike cuts in when Harvey continues to falter, “that you’re kind of missing the point.”

The point? What point?

“This has nothing to do with you,” Bobby says fiercely, but Mike has faced down bigger foes, stronger men with more bluster and gumption, accustomed to getting their way and willing to do anything to see it happen, and he won’t be cowed.

Not when it comes to defending Harvey.

“Well,” Mike posits, “maybe so, but Missus Specter, I know that whether you lied about Bobby here or not, you definitely made a habit of lying to your children when they were growing up about an awful lot more than just the rainbow bridge to the farm upstate, and from where I’m sitting, that doesn’t sound like an especially ‘emotionally free environment’ you were creating. Or, maybe I’m wrong; maybe you never told him that you and his father were fine, that you were spending late nights alone at the office because there was a lot of _work_ you were doing, or there was a big _presentation_ coming up, but everything was going A-OK and that guy you saw coming out of the bedroom the other day is just a ‘friend’? Same as last time, right, and all those other ‘friends’?”

Harvey furrows his brow and flexes his fist.

_Maybe we can talk about this later._

Right. Later.

Lily bites her lip, her eyes glistening.

“Chris and Amanda know me,” she beseeches. “They know me, and they love me, and they trust me to look out for them. I took care of them when they needed me, I was there for them before and I want to be there for them again. Bobby and I,” she grabs his hand, clasping it tight as though it’ll make her point for her, “we’ll be there, we’ll support them, we’ll give them whatever they need. We’ll be there for them in ways you couldn’t, we’ll give them the love and the attention that they deserve.”

“I trusted you too, when I was their age,” Harvey spits boldly, “and look where that got me.”

“You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into,” she insists then, a desperate effort, a pathetic scramble for leverage. “You can’t raise two children all by yourself! You barely have time for your brother, out here fighting cancer, when he needs you the most, and you expect to be able to take care of a couple of teenagers?”

“Preteens,” Mike points out, “and just so you know, he’s not all by himself.”

Harvey nods, even though he’s not sure who Mike is thinking of. Donna? That would end in disaster for sure. Paula? An even worse idea, not to mention the fact that they haven’t spoken in over a year.  


Then who…

Hold the fucking phone.

It’s Katie who catches on first.

“I thought you were coworkers,” she says skeptically.

“We were,” Mike replies, which is true. “Now we’re not.”

We’ll see.

“You said it yourself,” Harvey says then as he recovers his stability (he’s not alone anymore, he’s not), “I’m a managing partner at a major corporate firm; I’ve got a great staff under me who I’d trust with my life, much less my business if I needed some time off to take care of my niece and nephew for a few weeks. Look,” he lays out in the same tone he uses to slam dunk multimillion-dollar deals, “I don’t want to take this to family court; that could take months, and I think we all know I’d wipe the floor with you without breaking a sweat. So why don’t we just settle this right now? Mike and I will take the kids back to New York with us, we’ll keep them as long as you need us to, and you know what, if you’re not ready to take them back by the time school starts up again, we’ll come back here for awhile, we’ll work out a place to stay.”

Who’re you saying “can’t be there for them,” huh?

Bobby grits his teeth, moments away from growling at Harvey, snarling like a feral dog, and Lily pinches her lips tight as a couple of illustrative tears fall down her cheeks. Katie continues to frown, no longer so much in opposition as contemplation, and Marcus contents himself with sinking wearily into the sofa cushions and letting the rest of the family have it out around him.

Mike nudges Harvey’s hand, and Harvey smirks.

“And, Mom, by the way? He prefers ‘Christopher.’”

\---

“This was your plan from the start, wasn’t it?”

Harvey smirks, sinking his head down into his pillow and scratching his hairline.

“Maybe. I don’t even know.”

“‘Wipe the floor with them without breaking a sweat,’ you’ve never been to family court in your life, you goddamn liar.”

“Sounded good, though, didn’t it?”

Mike giggles up at the ceiling, and Harvey looks over at him.

“What?”

“You remember after my grandmother died,” he says, which occurs to Harvey as a funny way to start an anecdote, “and you came over to my apartment to yell at me—”

“I didn’t _yell_ at you.”

“Shut up a second, so you came over to my apartment and we smoked that joint together?”

Harvey frowns. “Yeah…”

“And I said when you were a dad, your kid would be like, a tiny version of you? With the hair gel and the pinstripe OshKosh B’gosh?”

“Sort of?”

Mike giggles again, trailing off as though the story was its own punchline, and Harvey reaches across the bed to jostle his shoulder.

“Hey, you okay?”

Mike sighs, craning his neck back and tilting his head to look at Harvey from under his lowered lids.

“I think you’re gonna be a really good dad to those kids.”

Harvey’s lips part tentatively and his gaze softens as his heartbeat goes a little arrhythmic.

_You know more about what it takes to be a good parent than anyone I’ve ever known._

It shouldn’t be true, shouldn’t be able to be true, but it is, without a doubt.

_You don’t know what it means to me to hear you say that._

Surely Mike does know.

_So are you._

Well.

He smiles, reaching to pat Mike on the shoulder and forgetting to take his hand away.

“You know I’m not gonna keep them forever.”

Snorting a laugh, Mike returns his gaze to the light fixtures.

“You’re gonna be there for them when it counts.”

“Mike.”

Mike hums thoughtfully, and Harvey knows he’s building up his strength for something important.

“You probably figured it out already, but Rachel cheated on me again.”

There it is.

Harvey nods, even though Mike doesn’t need his participation to finish the story, but that’s okay; Harvey will be there for him until he’s made it to the end.

“She’s working at a pretty decent firm that fields a lot of class action stuff,” Mike says vaguely, “and the last case she was on, it was this guy Ken’s, one of those dudes who got shitty grades all through high school and then got to college and turned out to be some kind of genius who’d been stifled by the system, so now he compares himself to Einstein all the time. He’s this big hotshot defense attorney, married to his work, twenty-four hour days, fast tracking to the top, all the good stuff.”

He scoffs, but it doesn’t sound bitter so much as resigned.

“I _thought_ he was married to his work. I never met the guy, but that’s how Rachel always described him; every time she had a late night at the office, it was always ‘Ken’s burning the midnight oil and I want to show him I’m serious about this case,’ or, ‘Ken just made a major breakthrough and I want to follow this through before I go home for the night.’ ‘Ken wants this report first thing tomorrow morning and I’ve been so busy all day that I’ve only just gotten around to it.’”

Those are the signs, alright.

Mike sighs.

“If it was up to her, I don’t know if she ever would’ve told me, but one day I get a call from some coworker of hers, Diane, who I’ve never met, and she tells me she knows it’s none of her business but she left her husband after she caught him cheating on her, and she wishes someone had told her about it earlier so she wouldn’t’ve wasted so many years with the son of a bitch, so she couldn’t just sit by and do nothing.”

Harvey thinks about the fifty percent divorce rate in America, about the numbers being skewed by the repeat offenders, the serial adulterers. He thinks about Logan Sanders.

Mike clears his throat.

“She sends me a picture of the two of them kissing, Rachel and Ken, and of course I’m thinking this can’t be what it looks like, he just accosted her and Diane caught them at exactly the right moment, you know, how many times have I seen this on TV, but then the next day she sends me a fifteen-second video, and there’s no way I can bullshit myself into thinking it’s nothing.”

Harvey thinks about moving his hand away from Mike’s shoulder, but he doesn’t like the impression that would give, so he leaves it where it is.

Mike shrugs.

“So then the day after that, I showed Rachel the picture, I asked her what was going on and she said it was just a little one-off thing, he got excited when she handed over some key evidence they’d been scouring the records for or something, she knew he had a thing for her but it was just an impulse, it didn’t mean anything. And then I showed her the video, where she’s got her arms wrapped around his neck and he’s got one of his hands in her hair and the other one basically down her shirt, and she just— She doesn’t even try to explain it away, she just sort of…walks out of the room, all quiet, like I’m supposed to feel bad for her or something.”

Mike puts his hands up underneath his head, which moves Harvey’s hand down to his back, around his shoulder blade.

Harvey slides his hand under Mike’s spine for a better angle.

“The next morning, I asked her what she’d been thinking, and she said she hadn’t really been thinking anything, that it had all been this lustful thing that didn’t actually mean anything, just animal magnetism or something. She said she wasn’t even sure what to call it, just that it was overpowering, that she knew she shouldn’t do it but she just couldn’t help herself, and neither could he, and she was so sorry, but it was over now.” Mike smirks, his head rocking from side to side. “I asked if it was over because I’d found out, if she’d broken it off with him yet or she just made up her mind right that minute, and she said it had been over for a long time, she just hadn’t known how to tell him.”

Mike closes his eyes, and Harvey takes his hand back and turns over onto his side.

“And I said, ‘Tell who?’ And I think she meant him, I really do, I think that she might’ve been waiting for the chance to break off the affair, but we both knew that it didn’t matter anymore.”

Harvey props himself up on his elbow.

After a beat or two, Mike opens his eyes again, still fixed on the ceiling, and smiles a wane little smile.

“Sorry I didn’t tell you.”

“Don’t be.”

Mike quirks his eyebrows at Harvey, who shakes his head.

“I’m glad you waited until you were ready.”

Mike smiles again, and Harvey rests his head in his hand.

“You probably figured it out already,” Mike says, “but I haven’t been doing so great on my own.”

Harvey shakes his head again, as much as he’s able without sitting up proper. “You’re doing fine.”

“I mean I haven’t been doing great without you.”

Harvey wants to disagree; he should, it would be the proper thing, but he remembers the warmth in his heart when Mike offered to fly down to Boston to meet him, the unbelievable enormity of it when he actually _did;_ he remembers Mike’s unflinching support as they faced down Harvey’s mother, his unwavering belief that Harvey would do right by Marcus and Katie’s kids, that he would be the best thing for them, that he would know how to take all the buried pieces of his damaged self and put them back together to help Christopher and Amanda learn how to lose their father after all this time. How to handle backing away from a fight that they don’t know how to give up fighting.

“You’re welcome back anytime.”

Shoving himself back against the headboard, Mike sits up, cradling his knees to his chest.

“You know you’re not my consolation prize, right? You’re not my rebound fling.”

Harvey does sit up proper this time, crossing his legs and bending over them, tilting toward Mike.

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

Mike wipes his hand across his face and averts his eyes.

“I know I’m tired of waiting.”

Harvey cocks his head. “And the perfect moment is right when I’m about to take in a couple of preteens?”

Mike shrugs. “It’s good practice.”

“Isn’t that jumping the gun a little?” Harvey teases, but Mike only shakes his head.

“Harvey, if I haven’t gotten over you by now,” he says frankly, “I’m pretty sure it’s never going to happen.”

Oh, but this is all happening so fast.

Harvey tries not to smile too wide. Not really, it isn’t.

“So you’re gonna stick around?”

Mike doesn’t seem to mind the broadness of his own grin.

“I’m staying as long as you’ll have me.”

Harvey starts to reach his hands out, even though he isn’t quite sure where to put them, but then Mike settles his own hands on either side of Harvey’s face and Harvey wraps his arms around Mike’s back, pulling him nearly into his lap and tilting his head at the last moment when Mike leans in, fitting them together at just the right angle.

Bracing his knees on either side of Harvey’s hips, Mike doesn’t stop kissing him until they both start panting for breath.

Harvey runs his thumb across the arc of Mike’s cheekbone.

“I think it’s gonna be awhile.”

Mike smiles.

\---

Katie promised she’d warn the kids that the price of spending spring break in New York City was a six AM wakeup call to make sure they got to the station on time, but that doesn’t stop Amanda from dozing off the moment the train starts moving, or Christopher from glaring at them with murder in his eyes and all the creativity of a bright eleven-year old at his beck and call.

Harvey settles into his seat with a contract Louis is negotiating with some jackass who thinks that having an outrageous net worth based on his stockpile of Bitcoin is the same thing as having a lot of disposable income, and Mike leans his elbow on the windowsill as he cracks open a book.

Christopher makes it nearly twenty stubborn minutes before he breaks the silence.

“I’m not an idiot, okay?”

Harvey looks over the top of the contract as Mike folds down the corner of the page he’s reading.

“I don’t think anyone said you were,” Harvey says. Christopher scowls.

“I know Mom and Dad are sending us off with you until Dad gets out of the hospital.”

Oh boy.

Mike sets his book down in his lap, and Harvey closes his contract file.

“Christopher… You know your parents love you and your sister, right?” Harvey asks, which makes Christopher roll his eyes.

“Their our parents, that’s their job.”

Harvey bites the inside of his cheek and folds his hands on top of the file in his lap.

“Right,” he agrees. “So you know they want to look out for you, and keep you safe. They want to protect you for as long as they can.”

“Duh.”

Harvey nods.

“And that doesn’t just mean protecting you from danger that might make you sick or break your bones, but sometimes it means protecting you from seeing…things, from having to be places where bad things are happening that you can’t do anything to stop.”

Mike turns to look out the window, and Christopher narrows his eyes suspiciously as the pieces begin to fall together.

“My dad,” he says with innocent candor. “He’s really sick, isn’t he? Like, more than last time.”

Harvey sighs. When he doesn’t answer immediately, Mike reaches over the armrest to take his hand, and Harvey grips the lifeline as he steadies his nerves.

“Yes he is.”

Christopher fidgets with his hands, pulling on his fingers like he’s trying to crack his knuckles, and looks down at his lap, or the floor.

“Are we going to live with you forever?”

Utterly thrown by the question, although in hindsight, he should have seen it coming miles away, Harvey turns to Mike and receives a gentle nod in response, a tender encouragement that he’s doing fine, this is going great. All things considered.

Christopher’s eyes are still locked on the ground. Harvey leans a little closer.

“No,” he says with as much reassurance as he can manage. “This is only for a little while until your mom and dad have gotten things under control and they can figure out where they need to go from here.”

“Until my dad dies.”

Precocious little scamp, isn’t he?

Harvey shakes his head.

“Do you know what’s wrong with your dad?” he asks. Christopher nods, so he continues: “Cancer is a very complicated kind of sickness, and it’s hard for doctors to figure out how to handle it, so your mom and dad need some time that they can spend only working on that, all day long; and they want to have time to spend with you and your sister, they want to be able to take care of you and play with you and do all the stuff they usually do, but they probably wouldn’t be able to do a very good job of it, so they’re letting you stay with Mike and me until they can figure out how to do both.”

“Never half-ass two things,” Christopher says. “Whole-ass one thing.”

Harvey raises his eyebrows as Mike snorts and covers his mouth.

“ _Parks and Rec_ ,” he supplies. Christopher smiles for a second.

“Sure,” Harvey says. “Okay, well, yeah, that’s… That’s about it. So what do you think, you and your sister are gonna be okay with me and Mike for a couple weeks?”

Christopher looks over at Amanda, curled up on the seat beside him, and shrugs. “We don’t have a choice, do we?”

Harvey sighs through his teeth. “No, I guess you don’t.”

Amanda shifts in her sleep, a few strands of hair falling into her mouth when she turns her head; Christopher smiles again, small and private, before he meets Harvey’s gaze with a challenging glare that Harvey recognizes from his own childhood.

“Don’t tell Amanda about Dad.”

Harvey presses his lips together and sighs out his nose.

“I think I’m going to have to tell her a little bit before you go back home,” he warns, but Christopher only shakes his head.

“I want to do it.”

Harvey and Mike exchange a nervous glance as Christopher watches them hawkishly, his eyes creasing at the corners and his nose wrinkling right along the base.

“Maybe you can be there.”

Harvey nods. Okay. Okay. We’ll figure this thing out, all of us together, however long we have to fight. Whatever’s coming our way.

We can take it.

**Author's Note:**

> “You know who helped out when Katie was taking me to chemo? Mom made dinner every night. Bobby took my kids to school every day, which means while they might be monsters to you, to my kids, they’re Grandma and Grandpa.”  
> —Marcus, “[The Painting](https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=suits&episode=s06e12)” (s06e12)
> 
> “Call me! Dial your number! Go ahead!”  
> [Fred dials the cell phone]  
> “I told you I was here.”  
> “How’d you do that?”  
> —The Mystery Man and Fred, _Lost Highway_ (1997)
> 
> “I’m so angry. I don’t want to be angry anymore, but I don’t know how to stop.”  
> “Then let me say how sorry I am for all the pain that I have caused you.”  
> “You don’t need to tell me how sorry you are.”  
> “Yes, I do. Harvey, we both may have played a part in the last 20 years, but I was an adult, and I put you in that position. And not a day goes by that I don’t understand why you hate me. I was your mother. I was supposed to protect you, not scar you. Harvey I am so sorry.”  
> “I don’t hate you, Mom. I hate what you did, and I probably always will, but I don’t hate you.”  
> “I’ll take that.”  
> —Harvey and Lily, “The Painting” (s06e12)
> 
> “Honey, you remember our cousin—my cousin Scott?”  
> “Hey.”  
> “No.”  
> “‘Course you do. He’s cousin Judy’s brother.”  
> “I don’t feel good.”  
> “Oh, yeah, you’re burning up. Let’s get you to bed. And let’s not tell Dad about cousin Scott. Okay? ‘Cause they don’t get along. Come on. You poor thing.”  
> —Lily, Scott, and Harvey, “[Hitting Home](https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=suits&episode=s05e07)” (s05e07)
> 
> “Ain’t you got a drink in the house?”  
> “Well, not before breakfast, dear.”  
> —Tom Powers and Kitty, _The Public Enemy_ (1931)
> 
> “I just got an image of you as a dad. Like a little Harvey Specter. You know, all hair-gelled and, like, pin-striped OshKosh B’gosh. ‘Dad, don’t play the odds, play the man. It’s a win-win.’ You being like, ‘Go to your goddamn room.’”  
> —Mike, “[High Noon](https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=suits&episode=s02e10)” (s02e10)
> 
> “Never half-ass two things. Whole-ass one thing.”  
> —Ron Swanson, _Parks and Recreation_ , “[Sweet Sixteen](https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=parks-and-recreation&episode=s04e16)” (s04e16)
> 
> $1000 per session is stupidly expensive, even for a psychiatrist, but it’s not unheard of, especially in New York City.
> 
> The only vague indication of Marcus’s kids’ ages is in “[Not Just a Pretty Face](https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=suits&episode=s04e16)” (s04e16), when Marcus says “I’ve got to go. The kids are in the bath.” The kids are never canonically named.
> 
> [Forty Dalton](http://www.fortydalton.com/) is the in-house restaurant at the [Hilton Boston Back Bay Hotel](http://www3.hilton.com/en/hotels/massachusetts/hilton-boston-back-bay-BOSBHHH/index.html).
> 
> Mike and Harvey have both been shown canonically sleeping on both sides of the bed.
> 
>  _Breakfast of Champions_ (1973) is a novel by Kurt Vonnegut which has nothing to do with mimosas.
> 
> To the best of my knowledge, there is no hard evidence that “Scott” is actually Bobby, nor mention of when Lily and Bobby first hooked up.


End file.
